Vegetation Information for the Voyageurs National Park Vegetation Inventory Project

Hop, Kevin; Faber-Langendoen, Don; Lew-Smith, Michael; Aaseng, Norman; Lubinski, Sara

Final reports describing the vegetation mapping and sampling efforts at VOYA. Inventory and Monitoring Program of the National Park Service to classify, describe, and map vegetation for 250 National Parks. The Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center (UMESC) in La Crosse, Wisconsin, the Midwest Regional Office of The Nature Conservancy (TNC), and the Association for Biodiversity Information have completed mapping and classifying the existing vegetation in Voyageurs National Park and environs. The UMESC provided project coordination, photo interpretation of the aerial photographs and subsequent automation, accuracy assessment analysis, and final product compilation. Staff at the Midwest Resource Office of TNC and the Minnesota County Biological Survey of the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources conducted vegetation classification, including collection of data in the field and subsequent analysis. The Center for Biological Informatics provided oversight to the project. Staff at Voyageurs National Park organized the acquisition of the aerial photographs, provided logistical and equipment support, and provided housing and personnel for field work. This report presents the work conducted at Voyageurs National Park in northern Minnesota between 1996 and 1998.Voyageurs National Park contains a high diversity of vegetation types typical of the southern boreal and Laurentain mixed conifer-hardwood regions. The U.S. National Vegetation Classification (USNVC) provided the standards for describing the vegetation types. The USNVC is a vegetation-based system that emphasizes natural and existing vegetation. 191 plots were collected throughout the project area, resulting in 50 community types (associations of the USNVC). The types were linked to map units, which are representations of the types to the extent that can be discerned on the aerial photographs. Sixty-seven map units, including land use/land cover and park specific categories, were used to map 156,886 hectares (387,674 acres) of Voyageurs National Park and environs, including a portion of Canada. Color infrared film at a scale of 1:15,840 provided the imagery. The interpreted photos were manually transferred to orthophoto quadrangle maps (1:12,000-scale), and subsequently automated using ArcInfo. 32,841 polygons were delineated; nearly 53% of the polygons were forest types. The greatest number of hectares (h) mapped was the Quaking Aspen-Paper Birch Forest (>21,500 h) and the largest polygons mapped (average size 30 h) were Black Spruce Bogs. The Natural Heritage Network and TNC consider a number of vegetation types at Voyageurs National Park to be globally rare. Two types are listed as Vulnerable or Apparently Secure (G3G4), the Northern Sedge Poor Fen and the White Pine / Mountain Maple Mesic Forest. The potentially rarest type, White Cedar - Yellow Birch Forest, is present in the park, but its global taxonomic status is unresolved (G2Q). 1,251 field data points were used to test the thematic accuracy of the map. Overall thematic map accuracy was assessed at 82.4%.

Vegetation Information for the Voyageurs National Park Vegetation Inventory Project

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